Colombo, August 02 (Daily Mirror) - Sri Lanka Immigration and Emigration Department securing a position to send an officer to function at the Regional Support Office (RSO) of the Bali Process to watch human smuggling and migrant trafficking is a great achievement for the country, said the Immigration Chief Harsha Illukpitiya.

The Controller General said since July 1 a well-trained skilled officer of the Sri Lanka Immigration and Emigration Department is stationed in Bangkok, Thailand engaging in the regional support work of human smuggling watch.

Illukpitiya made these remarks at a special event held to launch the 2023 Annual Report of the department’s top investigating body, the Border Surveillance Unit (BSO) held at the Water’s Edge with a distinguished gathering of local and foreign law enforcement agencies.

He said the Government of New Zealand has come forward to sponsor the Immigration Officer who was sent to Bangkok to share information, study human smuggling operations and counter-facilitate such moves in the region from Sri Lanka’s end.

The appointed officer will assist the Regional Support Office in observing the attempts by local human smuggling syndicates to send youth in the human smuggling triangle of Bali, Vietnam and Myanmar through unscrupulous methods.

This will help to prevent major human smuggling scams like sending dozens of youth for employment in shady IT industry occupations operated under the insurgents in Myanmar in future.

Controller Investigations and Operations M. G. V. Kariyawasam said last year alone the BSU thwarted 89 attempts to leave the country with forged documents and they are well interconnected with law enforcement agencies like the CID and Customs, local and international airlines, foreign immigration authorities and foreign agencies like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime is a non-binding, international and multilateral forum that supports collaboration, dialogue and policy development relating to irregular migration in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Established in 2002, and co-chaired by the Governments of Australia and Indonesia, the Bali Process brings together 45 Member States and four Member Organisations, covering a wide geography ranging across the Asia-Pacific, and reaching across to Europe, Africa and North America.

Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security Viyani Gunathilaka and top state officials were present at the launch.